Tale of Two Cities: Ramallah, Gaza and the Identity Crisis

Tale of Two Cities: Ramallah, Gaza and the
Identity Crisis

The distance
between Gaza and Ramallah in sheer miles is hardly
significant. But in actuality, both cities represent two
different political realities, with inescapable cultural and
socioeconomic dimensions. Their geopolitical horizons are
vastly different as well – Gaza is situated within its
immediate Arab surroundings and turmoil, while Ramallah is
westernized in too many aspects to count. In recent years,
the gap has widened like never before.

Of course, Gaza and
Ramallah were always, in some ways, unalike. Demographics,
size, topography and geographic proximity to Arab countries
with different political priorities have always made them
separate and distinctive. But the Israeli occupation of East
Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 had decisively
removed Ramallah from its Jordanian element, and Gaza from
its Egyptian political milieu. Although they are both
Palestinian towns, decades of spinning in the background of
collective Arab affairs created a distance that at times
felt too great to condense. The Israeli occupation however
revitalized that common Palestinian experience of a shared
struggle against a common enemy. Despite its many
shortcomings, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
eventually filled the gap of leadership, thus unifying the
ranks of Palestinians in Ramallah, Gaza, and the Palestinian
Diaspora.

Despite its endemic corruption and questionable
democratic credentials, the PLO has done more than unifying
Palestinians around a set of political ideals and
‘constants’, but throughout the years it has helped in
knitting a unique Palestinian political discourse, laden
with revolutionary references, global in its outreach and
yet exclusively Palestinian in its attitude. There was
indeed a time in which a Palestinian teacher in Kuwait held
similar ideals to a refugee from Lebanon, to a student in
Russia, and to a laborer in Gaza.

Those times are long
gone and many factors contributed to the demise of the
collective Palestinian discourse. Regional and international
circumstances lead to the fragmentation of the PLO and the
rise of the Oslo era under the patronage of the United
States and other western governments. Not that the
acquiescence of the Palestinian leadership in Sep. 1993 was
completely unexpected, but the speed and direction of that
retreat was so excessive and punishing, representing an
equal crisis comparable to previous Arab military defeats. A
defeat in battle often results in overwhelming alternation
to the landscape, but Oslo was a submission of defeat and
the acceptance, if not embracing of all of their resultants.
A psychological defeat is worse than a battlefield
conquest.

Sometimes overtly, and at other times subtly,
the rapports that unified Palestinian society for
generations began to dissolve. The PLO was quickly sidelined
in favor of its localized copy, the atrociously factional
Palestinian Authority. Factions outside the PLO grew in
their relevance and outreach in an attempt to fill the gap.
Groups like Hamas, however, were not prepared for their
sudden upsurge. While they embodied the resistance that
countered the PA’s surrender, they lacked a well-rounded
political discourse and uniting language. They appealed to
an Islamic world that doesn’t exist in actuality as a
political force, and eventually settled for near complete
reliance on a few Arab states with confused, but surly,
self-serving agendas.

It is no longer clear what Gaza and
Ramallah still have in common. It is evident that the
languages spoken in both of these cities are different, the
grievances vary, and the political expectations are no
longer in tandem. This is in fact much more dangerous than a
case of failed leaderships, for it is a breakdown of a
national discourse or even worse, a fragmentation of a
national identity.

Of course, many Palestinians in many
places still deeply care about Palestine, but they don’t
care the same way, or more specifically, they generally
don’t rally for the ‘Palestinian cause’ around a set
of common goals, emanating from a set of common ideals. This
is perhaps one of the reasons why the Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions (BDS) movement grew exponentially in recent
years to more than groups of activists calling for a boycott
of Israeli goods and such. There is a clear thirst for
alternatives. Oslo has done more than dividing Palestinians
into many political strands. It has also confused and
fragmented their supporters as well.

When the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo accords
twenty years ago, the debate then was concerned with ideas
and issues that are still relevant today: negotiating peace
amid the growth of illegal settlements and under military
occupation, Arafat’s lack of a moral and political mandate
to sign off historical rights of an entire nation,
Israel’s sincerity and American predisposition to support
Israel under any circumstances, etc. But for Palestinians,
the debate should, and must be extended to include the
dangers that are unlikely to remain long after the Oslo
conspirators are gone.

Bold and very difficult questions
must be asked and addressed without frenzy and further
division. How long can the Palestinian people sustain their
sense of nationhood under political tribalism, geographic
division, factionalism, relentlessly polarizing media
discourses, the renting out of Palestinian political
independence to donor and Gulf countries, the
marginalization of Palestine in the wake of Arab turmoil and
civil wars, and much more? Should Palestinians be expected
to sustain their sense of common identity purely based on
their shared sense of injustice invited by the Israeli
occupation, Apartheid and discrimination?

Palestine is
more than a flag and an anthem, and Palestinians are united
by more than their factional affiliation, political
sympathies or their detestation of the Israeli soldier and
the military checkpoint. But neither the political
leaderships in Ramallah, nor in Gaza are capable of defining
or representing real Palestinian identity that spans time
and space. The fragmentation of Palestinian identity will
not cease, but will intensify, if a third way that is born
out of the collective will of Palestinians, is not
introduced to Palestinian society and advocated with
unwavering resolve. This third way cannot be elitist and
must come from the streets of Gaza and Ramallah, not
academic papers or press conferences. Only then, Gaza and
Ramallah can find their historic rapport, once
more.

*************

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is a
media-consultant, an internationally-syndicated columnist
and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book
is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold
Story (Pluto
Press).

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